Having recently travelled to the UK and the US with my 3G/WiFi iPad 1 as my sole communication device, I thought I would pass on a few thoughts on travelling with an iPad.

1) Roaming Charges Using your Canadian 3G SimCard Outside of Canada: Since I tend to be stingy (not a good quality), I have never tested using my Canadian 3G access while abroad. However, comments from others suggest it can be very expensive.

2) WiFi not as Common as One Might Think: Depending on your hotel chain of choice, I find that free WiFi is not always an option (and you should check in advance – many hotels list "WiFi availability" but it is often for a fee, as much as $15 per day). Free WiFi at airports can also be hit and miss. Likewise, although you can often find coffee shops on the street that provide free WiFi, if you are stuck in the middle of a city where there is no WiFi and need to use Google Maps or some other app, you are out of luck. I have experimented with Boingo to get paid WiFi access, but have not used it extensively.

3) Using a UK SimCard for 3G: While in the UK, I found a large number of mobile phone providers who provided "pay as you go" 3G iPad simcards. I ended up choosing a 1 GB pay as you go simcard from the Three store. The salesperson helped me to install it and set up an app so I could monitor usage. I found it useful to have Google Maps while riding double-decker buses to figure out where I was and where I was going.

4) Using a US SimCard for 3G: While in the US, I found it more of a challenge to acquire a US 3G simcard since most Internet chatter suggested you needed a credit card with a US mailing address to purchase a pay as you go simcard. However, at an AT & T store a salesperson suggested I could simply put in the mailing address of the US hotel where I was staying. I therefore purchased a simcard (a whopping $15 – I later learned I might have been able to negotiate a cheaper price or one for free from an Apple store, but that was not necessarily a convenient option for me). However, when trying to purchase the 3 GB per month pay as you go simcard, the online payment system would not accept my US hotel address for my corporate credit card. The salesperson then suggested trying my AMEX personal card, which did work (I have since seen some Internet chatter suggesting that prepaid US credit cards may also work). Ultimately, this worked out to being slightly cheaper than the hotel's WiFi and allowed online access while outside of the hotel.

5) Travel apps: There are no lack of iPad apps for travelling: see here, here, and here for some sample lists of travel apps. My most frequently used travel apps include Skype for iPad, WeatherEye HD, the Air Canada app, Yelp, and various subway maps, depending on which city I am in.

I welcome comments and other tips for travelling with an iPad. Of course, if purchasing simcards from abroad, do so at your own risk and make sure the salesperson understands your needs before commiting to any particular simcard or plan.

Now I need how to figure out how to stop the automatic renewal of my AT & T simcard . . . .

The LegalTech 2012 Conference last week was a bit overwhelming for me as a first-time attendee.

As a knowledge management (KM) lawyer / law librarian, my continuing legal education opportunities tend to focus more on conferences related to KM or law libraries, such as the upcoming annual conference of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries / L'Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit held in Toronto in May.

However, I think it was worthwhile attending LegalTech, although I might not need to attend every year. The main difference for me was the large number of technology vendors exhibiting or presenting their technology.

There were several themes I saw from the conference, including e-discovery and predictive coding, enterprise search, the use of iPads in legal practice (including mobile device management), and working in the cloud. Of these themes, e-discovery seemed to dominate.

Because my technology interests are currently not focused on e-discovery, I found many of the seminar sessions to be less relevant for me. That said, the keynote sessions were interesting and I enjoyed the session called iLove for the iPad: Tips, Tricks & Apps. From that session, I realized I am likely under-utilizing GoodReader for iPad, which – in addition to reading PDF files – also allows you to manage and transfer your files. A number of other PDF apps were mentioned, including PDF PROvider for iPad (which allows you to create PDF files) and PDF Expert (which lets you easily use PDF forms and signatures). The speakers also recommended the Atomic Web Browser as an alternative to the native iPad web browser since you have an option to have this web browser "mimic" your web browser of choice. I also likely taking notes in iWriter, mentioned by the speakers, since it has keyboard "arrows" allowing you to more accurately move the cursor on the screen). The other app I will likely explore is SoundNote, which records the speaker's voice and synchs up the recording with notes you are writing on the iPad. There is of course also the two high-end apps for lawyers, being TrialPad for iPad (which allows trial lawyers to easily use their iPad to present visual evidence to the court) and TranscriptPad for iPad (which allows you to easily review, tag, and annotate examination for discovery transcripts).

Ultimately, however, I found that perhaps the most useful thing to do was to meet with vendors and find out about their technology.

I spent last week at LegalTech in New York. It was a huge, thought provoking, intimidating, useful, connected, and intriguing experience. I was sent to the conference to investigate software in some specific market segments for my firm, and it was very useful for making connections with vendors and surveying the landscape of available products. There were very few librarians in the crowd.

The LegalTech experience could lead someone to believe that the most important technology function in our industry is eDiscovery. Predictive coding was another theme that bubbled to the surface multiple times along with cloud computing solutions.

Contrast themes from LegalTech with CanLII's recently released Strategic Priorities. Simon outlined this document for Slawyers last week, but today the Edmonton Law Libraries Association hosted a lunch with Colin Lachance, CanLII President and CEO, follow him on twitter.

LegalTech's recurring themes, at least for me, of eDiscovery, predictive coding and storing and using information in the cloud are all about content, accessing and delivering content in efficient ways. CanLII's first three strategic priorities are all about content, accessing enriched content and delivering content in a manner that encourages continued use of this vibrant service.

My law firm library is about content, access to enriched content, and delivering content in a manner that encourages use of our library services. Legal technology and law libraries appear to be aligned along the same themes. Perhaps it isn't that weird to send librarians to technology conferences.

Library Boy told us last year about some tentative steps that courts were making to embrace – or to sniff around tentatively – the whole subject of social media. Today's announcement from the UK Supreme Court that it will start official tweets of judgments – this in anticipation of the Assange extradition decision – represents the first wholesale adoption by a final court of appeal.

It overshadows Chief Justice McLachlin's announcement within a speech at Carleton University on the Media and the Courts, that the Canadian judiciary should start to think seriously about social media.

See the Globe, the Star, CTV and the Halifax papers

You can see a brief video clip here.

I understand that the Australians may be thinking about the issues too.

Two weeks ago federal prosecutors in the US shut down MegaUpload, one of the most popular file-sharing sites on the Internet. The site was a widely-used "digital locker" that stored files for millions of users world-wide. Some of those users, however, used the side for illegitimate purposes, turning the site into a hub of what the US prosecutors characterized as "massive worldwide online piracy."

While there's no question large quantities of illegal, pirated material was successfully removed with the MegaUpload takedown, thousands of innocent users have lost access to their files as a result of the takedown. The legality of the takedown has been questioned by lawyers from around the world, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation has promised to take legal action against the US Government if data is not returned to legitimate users promptly.

When considering the risks of storing data in the cloud, becoming collateral damage from an over-reaching takedown order is not something the typical consumer will - or should – have to contemplate. The US Government deserves strong pushback on this kind of action, as other file storage services, such as Dropbox, Box and others – could face the risk of being summarily shut down because a subset of its users choose to misbehave.

Congratulations to law firm Harrison Pensa in London, Ontario who have just relaunched their website. While launching a new site is not necessarily newsworthy (well, unless you are a member of the firm itself), in this case HP have used some fresh thinking which makes this redesigned site stand out.

A few features of the site:

• the look of the site is bold, personable, and still professional
• rather than stock photos, they feature their own lawyers prominently
• lawyer bios include links to their lawyers on social media sites (notably LinkedIn) and also allow for readers to share the bios across the web with a social media "share" button
• they have three blogs on the site (HP Business, HP Community, and Students), again with share-ability
• they are one of the few law firms taking advantage of the popular software WordPress.

Why is it interesting that they are using WordPress? WordPress is a free, Open Source platform that has become widely adopted around the world both for blogs and for websites as an easy-to-use content management system (CMS). According to Matt Mullenweg (WordPress originator) last August in his "State of the Word" report, WordPress is running on 15.5% of all websites, and accounts for over 54% of CMS marketshare. 22% of domains registered in the U.S. are running WordPress. That is a huge adoption rate, and yet law firms have a tendency to look for something other than this obvious solution. So, kudos to HP for joining the "cool kids" in using WordPress. It makes sense to use something that is widely known, and has a community around it for support.

HP are also tying the launch of their new website in with a campaign to raise funds for the London Food Bank. For every person who "likes" their Facebook community page, they will be donating a pound of food to the food bank. Kudos on this idea to give back!

For a more in-depth discussion of why the Harrison Pensa website is significant, see also Jordan Furlong's post on the Stem Law Firm Web Strategy blog from February 1st.

The Paris court of appeals has decided that a suggested search query generated by the Google Suggest function defamed the company whose name was first entered into the search box. This feature works by displaying the most popular searches performed by other Google searchers associated with the text typed into the search box. So Google doesn’t decide what is displayed; its machines just count and show.

Turns out that one of the most popular associations with the name of the plaintiff company was ‘escroc’, which in French means crook or swindler.

Is this a kind of ‘crowd-sourced’ defamation? What can Google or any search engine realistically do about it? Can the company program its suggestion feature to avoid any words in any language that may have a defamatory meaning? (I guess defamation by context or innuendo may be harder to demonstrate in this process.)

Would it be defamatory if a search for Company X turned up, as an ‘auto-suggest’, CompanyXSucks.com?

The damages were pretty stiff, it seems to me – 50,000 euros.

So: is there a problem here, in your view? Would Canadian law produce the same result? How would you advise your client, the search engine? What about your client Company X, in my hypothetical?

I have a tendency to want to keep my gravy out of my peas — control issues, I know. This makes me work to keep my social media in silos as much as possible, fearing, I suppose, the further loss of privacy if Facebook gossips to Twitter about me and vice versa. The devil — or the deity, if you prefer — is in the intersections, the linkages, the relationships.

This desire for some crafted anonymity or at least a tad of privacy is a forlorn hope, I realize, if I'm online and tweeting, blogging, "plus"-ing and the like, whether or not the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. And it seems that folks younger than me, which is to say most folks by far, are blithely uncaring about privacy when it comes to social media: the more the merrier and let it all connect.

In that spirit, IFTTT ("if this, then that") has launched an intriguing set of functionalities that allow you to explicitly establish linkages among your online activities to suit your particular needs. These linkages are, in effect, simple programs established on the coding model "if this, then that." So, for example, I can tell IFTTT that if I star an item in Google Reader, then send a note of that item to my Evernote account; or, if my Facebook profile picture changes, then change my Twitter photo to the new one also.

The units that you get to control are your social media accounts, which IFTTT calls "channels," and there are some 40 of them (Twitter, Facebook, email, LinkedIn, your telephone, etc. etc.). Channels are connected via "recipes," IFTTT's term for the condition and action parts of the program. There's no list of which actions are available or permissible, so far as I can tell, though there's a long list of "recipes" cooked up by others that will give you a pretty fair idea of what's possible. As you build your own recipe, the site offers you the various options available. When you've done, you've created a "task" that will execute itself.

I've only begun to explore what might be useful to me or, indeed, to those in the legal professions. But off the top of my head, it seems that you might want to keep a record of your tweets (which Twitter won't do for you); in which case a task that archives your tweets to another app so that you've got a good record of what you've said and when you said it might make sense. (As might the ability to trigger your phone to ring when you send a text message — if you find yourself in a lot of meetings.)

Take a look at see what you can come up with. Let us know by way of a comment if you cook up a recipe that might be of interest to others. Peas can taste good with gravy on them.

I have the pleasure of attending LegalTech 2012 in New York this week. Though I came to NYC to talk to vendors of legal technology products as my primary purpose, there have been some interesting learning opportunities as well. One session I attended yesterday was titled "Talking Technology to Lawyers".

The session was moderated by Gina Buser of Travelling Coaches. Panelists were all Chief Informatin Officers at large US law firms: Bob Dolinsky, Terry Pressley, and Kirk Scruggs. Thpugh their titles were the same, their approaches to speaking about technology to lawyers differed. My impression of the panelists was simplified in my notes like this:

• Bob sells tech to lawyers with the value proposition
• Terry sells tech to lawyers with relationship building
• Kirk sells tech to lawyers with service oriented attitude

These gentlemen use different approaches to achieve the same desirable goals. Advancing technology projects within their organizatins to meet the needs of their internal clients, lawyers and staff, who are in turn, working toward the goals of their clients and their firms.

Some things that worked for them include being prepared, building trust and relationships with lawyers, and aligning their groups goals with the core values of the firm, and managing user expectations with concise, plain language communications. The consensus was that over communication was better than too little information sharing.

All the LegalTech sessions have been interesting so far. Follow along on Twitter with #LTNY.

Who are these guys and why are they so happy? You're looking at Clio co-founders Rian Gauvreau on the left and Jack Newton (Slaw blogger) on the right; and they'll be smiling right now because they've just announced at Legal Tech that Clio has raised six million dollars in its Series B round of financing. From the Clio press release:

Clio will use this new funding to extend its product leadership position, aggressively developing new functionalities and supporting its growing customer base. In addition, the company aims to expand its footprint beyond the U.S. (which currently represents 95% of Clio’s sales) into other markets including Europe, Canada and Australia.

As the story in the Vancouver Sun explains,

Clio targets the majority of lawyers — those working solo or in small-scale firms — who want a reliable, convenient, low-cost method for managing their work flow. . . It is designed to streamline an array of tasks . . .

Our congratulations to Clio. It's great to see a company in the legal industry getting it right in these difficult times.

After a 6 week break the Members of Parliament return to Ottawa today starting at 11 am ET. The Projected Order of Business mentions resumption of the debate over Bill C-25, Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act. CBC's Kady O'Malley has her take on today's proceedings over on the CBC website.

We are expecting a new Federal budget in the next few weeks. And according to CBC News Now, other major legislation that will be dealt with this session includes immigration, financial services review, copyright reform (Bill C-11), the omnibus crime bill (Bill C-10) and doing away with the long gun registry (Bill C-19).

Coverage is currently available from the CBC Politics page. You can also see Kady O'Malley's live coverage via Twitter from the Hill Ticker.

The Senate returns tomorrow.

On January 24th, Google announced a sweeping overhaul to its privacy policies that will take effect March 1, 2012. Rather than maintaining 60+ distinct privacy policies for its various properties, Google has created a single, unified privacy policy that will provide what Google describes as a " beautifully simple and intuitive experience" across all of the company's sites.

The company should be commended for rolling out these changes in a completely transparent way: it has advertised the changes across its properties, and given users over a month to review the changes prior to them taking effect. Google's educational site does an admirable job of outlining the motivation for the changes. However, this does little to address concerns the updated privacy policy will provide Google an all-too-powerful window into our lives.

Importantly, the change in the privacy policy broadens the scope of how Google can use information gathered from its users:

We use the information we collect from all of our services to provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect Google and our users. We also use this information to offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads.

The new policy allows Google, for the first time ever, to freely share information between its various sites so it can create a more accurate model of users' interests and, thus, target ads more accurately. Short of deleting your Google account, there is no way to opt out of the forthcoming privacy changes.

Google's announcement has already generated a substantial backlash among users and lawmakers alike, forcing the company to defend the upcoming privacy policy changes.

Many users would rather give up a bit more privacy than give up Google. How about you?

Despite anecdotal evidence of jurors misbehaving when using the Internet and social media (for instance, the recent article on Slaw English Court Jails Juror Who Used Internet Search), a recent survey of members of the U.S. federal judiciary reveals that the problem appears less widespread than many assume.

The Federal Judicial Center was asked by a committee of the policy-making Judicial Conference of the United States to survey federal judges on the issue (response rate was 53%).

The results, based on the responses of 508 responding judges, indicate that detected social media use by jurors is infrequent, and that most judges have taken steps to ensure jurors do not use social media in the courtroom. The most common strategy is incorporating social media use into jury instructions (…) Also common are the practice of reminding jurors on a regular basis not to use social media to communicate during trial or deliberations, explaining the reasons behind the ban on social media, and confiscating electronic devices in the courtroom. Judges admit that it is difficult to police jurors.

Only 30 of the 508 judges who responded reported instances of detected social media use by jurors during trials or deliberations.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the situation is similar in Canada.

Maybe all the fuss over Juror (Mis)Behavior in the Information Age is exaggerated. Of course, it is also possible that a lot of the illicit juror tweeting, Google searching, LinkedIn'ing and Facebooking may very well escape the attention of judges. Most judges find out about juror misuse of Net media from tattling by other jurors or lawyers (perhaps lawyers who feel they are losing the case?).

The Library of Parliament's Information and Research Service has released a background paper, "Legal Status at the Federal Level of Assisted Human Reproduction in Canada" [PDF] by Sonya Noris and Marlisa Tiedemann. The paper takes the reader though the recent history (1990 – present) of federal attempts at the regulation of this set of developing medical practices, culminating in a brief analysis of the Quebec constitutional challenge to the Assisted Human Reproduction Act culminating in the ambiguous / ambivalent response of the Supreme Court (4-4-1, so to speak) in Reference re Assisted Human Reproduction Act 2010 SCC 61.

According to the backgrounder, "the federal Minister of Health’s office simply noted that they would 'take the necessary time to review the decision.'" Nothing has been forthcoming since that time, though it may be that the existence of the background paper bespeaks a revival of government interest. For, if the legal situation isn't busy developing, the technology certainly will be, bringing with it trying ethical and legal questions.

Just to remind you about what that technology might entail, here's a list of practices from the backgrounder that have at one time or another been forbidden or heavily frowned on:

• cloning of human embryos;
• commercial preconception or “surrogacy” arrangements;
• buying and selling of eggs, sperm and embryos;
• egg donation in exchange for in vitro fertilization services;
• germ-line genetic alteration (genetic alteration that can be passed to subsequent generations);
• ectogenesis (creation of an artificial womb);
• sex selection for non-medical purposes;
• creation of animal/human hybrids;
• retrieval of eggs from cadavers and fetuses for donation, fertilization or research;
• transfer of embryos between humans and another species;
• research on embryos beyond 14 days of development;
• creation of embryos solely for research purposes;
• use of human eggs, sperm or embryos for a reproductive procedure or for medical research without the informed consent of the donor; and
• offers to provide or pay for any prohibited practices.

On Friday I had the pleasure of speaking to an audience of lawyers at The Commons Institute's eCommerce and the Practice of Law conference in Toronto. I was given the large topic of using social media in a legal practice.

Below are the slides I started with in the discussion, but the real meat of it was the many excellent questions that were put to me by the group. I hope to blog more about those questions, either here or over on my personal blog (will let you know!). In the meantime, I hope these slides are helpful.

Here are just a few links to what seems the most thoughtful commentary on the aftermath of the Jan. 18 Blackout. Add more in the comments, if you got 'em.

• SOPA support in Congress
• PIPA vote postponed
• Why the strategy failed
• Whose daily life the blackout affected
• The significance of the effort
• The whole thing explained in 13 minutes

Also, using copyright laws to justify civil rights infringements is not over

The general public can already get legal information and/or advice from public legal education websites or from legal clinics and pro bono groups.

Some city councils in the United Kingdom are going one step further. Birmingham and Westminster are teaming up with videoconferencing firm Instant Law UK to offer free legal advice via webcam in public libraries:

"The plan is now to be in 100 locations within 12 months and 360 locations in 24 months. Though it will continue to place kiosks in those shopping centres which have already been identified – with three set to launch at the end of January – the focus is now on libraries. Services will in time be extended to cover non-legal issues such as debt problems."

"Users will access the service through a dedicated computer screen and webcam in a secure location in the library."

It will be interesting to watch this experiment as it unfolds. Will Canadian public libraries follow suit?

From an item I just posted on Stem's newly launched blog The Greenhouse, a javascript library is now available called impress.js that replicates many of zooming effects found in Prezi.com. For those not familiar with Prezi, this web presentation tool delivers a number of cool 3D effects, zooming in and out of your presentation elements.

The impress.js library offers similar effects, but without the flash technology. Developed by Bartek Szopka, it is also open source, and utilizes CSS3 3D transitions found in newer webkit supported browsers — which means you'll need Chrome or Safari to see the effects in this demo.

It's interesting to see some of the Prezi presentation experience recreated in webpages. It also demonstrates how far web presentation on open web standards has truly come.

If the geeky webby code-mongering doesn't bother you, please drop by The Greenhouse for more in the future! :)

Apple may have done it yet again.

The iBooks system launched today puts a powerful but easy-to-use authoring system into the hands of anyone who wants it, presaging the publication of dynamic ebooks by the millions—texts that will, of course, range in quality from the wretched to the superb—and, I should add, from the free to the expensive. Apple, being Apple, has tied this software in pretty tightly to its own iPad: books made by iBooks Author are made to be viewed on an iPad and may only be sold on Apple's iTunes Store. (There is also an ability to export a book from Author into PDF or TXT format, though how much functionality survives the transition to PDF I haven't yet discovered.)

Apple's video ad for this system—"Apple in Education," because the system is aimed ostensibly at writers of textbooks — gives you a decent sense of what's possible, once you get past the somewhat saccharine and trite testimonials about teaching.

At first glance, which is all I've given it, iBook Author seems to offer a great deal of promise. It looks about as easy to use as Keynote or PowerPoint, though I imagine some of the more dynamic elements will take a bit of getting used to; and the business of designing for touch instead of mouse clicks will require practice.

I see a big future here for the use of iBook Author in law firms as a creator of teaching / reference tools, and, indeed, to make promotional and explanatory material for clients. Of course, everyone will need to have an iPad. Which is the plan.

Here are some of the sites that are going dark today, or changing their home pages in protest over the proposed US legislation. For more information on why this legislation is so bad, check out these sites, or search for "SOPA" on Slaw or Techdirt.com, or just Google it.

Wikipedia:

Boing Boing

WordPress

EFF

This is Google's US site. Google's Canadian homepage does not seem to be affected.

Michael Geist

On January 18, 2012 you will not be able to read anything from the English version of Wikipedia.
Building on Jack's post yesterday, there is indeed a BIG fuss about SOPA. As Jack mentioned, Reddit and Boing Boing are also going dark in protest.

Wikipedia explains their blackout here, but I found this expert particularly interesting:

My hope is that when Wikipedia shuts down on January 18, people will understand that we’re doing it for our readers. We support everyone’s right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they can’t pay for it. We believe in a free and open Internet where information can be shared without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA and PIPA, and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States — don’t advance the interests of the general public.

There is a lengthy list of those who oppose PIPA and SOPA at the Protect Innovation website as well as advocacy and background materials.

Do you know of other sites going dark in protest on January 18?

Controversy and anger over the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has been gathering since the bill was introduced nearly three months ago.

Corporate supporters of the bill have been the targets of organized boycotts. GoDaddy, for example, was a supporter of SOPA until December 29's "Dump GoDaddy Day" gained enough traction to force the company to reverse its position on SOPA.

Meanwhile, popular websites such as Reddit and Boing Boing will show their opposition to SOPA by "going dark" (i.e., shutting down) for one day on January 18th. Google and Facebook are being campaigned to undertake a similar shutdown to show their opposition to SOPA.

So what's all the fuss about? SOPA grants copyright holders the ability to launch legal action against "rogue websites" that had, directly or indirectly, facilitated the unauthorized distribution of their content. While the propose bill sounds, on the surface, to be serving a noble purpose, opponents criticize the bill as too far-reaching, vague in its definitions, and at risk of detrimentally impacting legitimate websites. Furthermore, the bill's proposal to implement DNS blocking would undermine a key element of the Internet's infrastructure. An exhaustive list of why SOPA and the related Protect IP bills are fatally flawed authored by Mike Masnick is available on TechDirt.

Even the Obama administration has weighed in against the bill, citing the DNS-related provisions of the bill as a major concern.

It will be interesting, to say the least, to see how Congress reacts as opposition to SOPA culminates this week.

The 2011 Website Award of the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL) went to the Kenya Law Reports.

The winner was announced in December at an IALL meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Award seeks to recognise and promote free legal information websites that are authoritative, comprehensive, up-to-date, useful, and user-friendly.

Other nominees in 2011 included:

• Europeana
• Global Legal Information Network
• HuriSearch
• International Comparative Legal Guide Series
• Legifrance
• openDOAR
• RIS – Bundeskanzleramt Rechtsinformationssystem
• THOMAS
• War Crimes Research Office, Jurisprudence Collections
• WebLaw

A list of winners from previous years can be found on the IALL website.

On December 6, 2011, the Internet Child Pornography Reporting Regulations were registered in the Canada Gazette and came into force. The goal of the regulations is to establish a framework necessary to implement the mechanics for the designated organizations receiving reports and service providers who report to discharge their duties under An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service.

On December 8, 2011, the federal Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service (formerly Bill C-22) came into force. The new legislation aims to protect children from online sexual exploitation, by requiring suppliers of Internet services to the public to:

• Report tips they receive regarding websites where child pornography may be publicly available to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection
• Notify police and safeguard evidence if they believe that a child pornography offence has been committed using an Internet service that they provide

More details on obligations under the Act can be found in my previous blog post.

So what does the Regulations say?

Purpose of regulations

Designated organization and service providers both have obligations under the Act. The Regulations state how these obligations should be completed (i.e., how to make a report to a designated organization in accordance with the Act, how to notify police in accordance with section 3 of the Act and how to safeguard evidence in accordance with section 4 of the Act.

Obligations of designated organization

The Regulation officially names the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) as the designated organization for receiving reports under the Act. The C3P is currently Canada's national tip line for online reporting of child sexual exploitation on the Internet.

The regulation:

Describes what is required for having a secure online system. The designated organization must, for the purpose of receiving reports of Internet addresses under the Act, maintain a secure online system that a) assigns each service provider a unique identifier for the purpose of making reports; b) allows a service provider to report only Internet addresses; and c) issues to a service provider, for each report they make, a receipt that indicates the incident number assigned to the report, the service provider's name and unique identifier and the date and time of the report.

Elaborates on the role, functions and activities of the designated organization. The designated organization must take reasonable measures to:

a) Ensure its continued ability to discharge its role, functions and activities under the Act, including measures relating to the protection of its physical facilities and technical infrastructure, risk prevention and mitigation, emergency management and service resumption;

b) Protect from unauthorized access any information obtained or generated by the designated organization in the course of discharging its role, functions or activities under the Act; and

c) Ensure that all of its personnel have the necessary security clearance and training to discharge the designated organization's role, functions and activities under the Act.

Requires analysis and communication of findings. As soon as feasible after receiving a report required under the Act, the designated organization must determine whether any material found at the reported Internet address appears to constitute child pornography and, if so:

a) Determine, if possible, the geographic location of the server that the reported Internet address points to and the geographic location of the server hosting the material that appears to constitute child pornography; and

b) Make available to every appropriate Canadian law enforcement agency by secure means:

(i) The reported Internet address,

(ii) A description of any geographic location that the designated organization was able to determine under paragraph a), and

(iii) Any other information in the designated organization's possession that might assist the agency's investigation.

Describes what is required for retention of records. For each report received, the designated organization must retain the reported Internet address and a copy of the receipt issued for two years after the day on which the report is received.

Clarifies what to do if there is a breach, incident or conflict of interest, and how to notify the minister. The designated organization must notify the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness within 24 hours of becoming aware of any incident or breach that jeopardizes the designated organization's ability to discharge its role, functions or activities under the Act. In addition, the designated organization must take any measures necessary to avoid a conflict of interest in respect of its role, functions and activities under the Act, and must address any such conflict that does arise.

Describes the requirement for annual reporting. The designated organization must, not later than June 30 of each year, submit to the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness a report on the discharge of its role, functions and activities under the Act for the 12-month period beginning on April 1 of the preceding year. The report must include:

a) The number of reports received under the Act and, of those, the number that led the designated organization to make information available to a law enforcement agency;

b) A description of the measures that the designated organization had in place

c) A description of any incident referred in the Act that occurred and the steps taken in response to the incident;

d) A description of the measures that the designated organization had in place in accordance with the Act, any conflict of interest that arose and the steps taken to address it; and

e) Any other information that may affect the designated organization's current or future ability to discharge its role, functions or activities under the Act.

Obligations of service providers

The regulation elaborates on the manner in which persons who provide Internet services to the public can discharge their obligations under the Act, including as it relates to making a report, making a notification and preserving computer data under the Act.

Method of reporting. For the purpose of the Act, an Internet address must be reported by a service provider using the online system set up by the designated organization the C3P. The notification from a service provider must be in writing and must include the following information:

a) The child pornography offence that the service provider has reasonable grounds to believe is being or has been committed using their Internet service;

b) A description of the material that appears to constitute child pornography, including its format;

c) The circumstances under which the service provider discovered the alleged offence, including the date and time of discovery;

d) A description of any other evidence relating to the alleged offence in the possession or control of the service provider; and

e) Contact information of the service provider's representative for the purpose of investigating the matter.

Security measures to protect data. A service provider that is required to preserve computer data must retain a copy of that data in a secure offline location.

Enforcement

Any prosecutions under this Act are conducted by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

This post is co-authored with Christina Catenacci LL.B

Today AvoidAClaim posted about three new fraud scams that lawyers alerted us to. All were similar to other scams we have seen in the past.

• A commercial debt collection scam by Grenham Donal Falley
• A breach of contract scam by Chan Li
• A collaborative family law agreement scam by Michelle Eley

This goes to show that the frausters are always at work coming up with new names, new email addresses, and new variations of the same scam to keep ahead of our efforts to publicize the information. See our Fraud Fact sheet for all the information you'll need to help spot the red flags of scams like these.

As Connie mentioned, the annual Consumer Electronics Show is now underway in Las Vegas. The tech press is full of commentary on the latest and greatest things at the show. One trend is that everything is becoming more intelligent and more connected, ranging from TV's to appliances.

That results in many great features and new capabilities. At the same time, a Washington Post article entitled Privacy rights activists worry about potential abuse of high-tech devices featured at CES event points out that we can't forget about the privacy issues that comes along with this technology.

The article starts off by saying:

The thousands of devices debuting Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show here demonstrate how tech companies are poised to gather unprecedented insights into consumers’ lives — how much they eat, whether they exercise, when they are home and who they count as friends.

Silicon Valley is in a gold rush for information, highlighted by Google’s announcement Tuesday that it would incorporate data posted by users on its social networking service into the results of its main search engine.

Many of the companies providing this technology are certainly cognizant of the privacy issues, and will do the right things regarding use, disclosure and consent. But we can't forget that we don't all have the same sensibilities or thresholds for privacy issues. Some of us may indeed care about who our washing machine tells that our laundry is done, or who knows what the temperature is in our house.

This is an issue that we can't just brush aside.

Over the last four days there has been a massive spike in bad cheque frauds targeting lawyers in across Canada (BC, Ontario and Quebec), the U.S. (NC, NY) and several other countries around the world (including Australia, Fiji, Italy, Scotland, Sweden, Turkey and the U.K.).

Almost 300 lawyers notified us that they received an initial contact message on one of these frauds. As LAWPRO would receive reports on a fraction of the attempted frauds, it would appear that thousands of lawyers have been targeted over the last four days. Several thousand lawyers have visited the AvoidAClaim blog for more information on these frauds.

Roughly half the frauds reported to us were from someone purporting to be Nan Zhang of NPI Lease Company Limited seeking help on a breach of lease matter.

About one third were from someone purporting to be Kiyoshi Yukio of NPI Lease Company Limited seeking help on a breach of lease matter.

We have several reports of someone purporting to be Jane Zhu of China Harbour Engineering Company Limited seeking help on a breach of lease matter.

This was the first time we have seen this lease scam and all three of the above names are new to us as well. In this bad cheque fraud the ‘customer’ accused of breaching the lease agreement will quickly send a (counterfeit) cheque for damages to the lawyers office, and the lawyer will be asked to wire the funds (minus fees and costs) to an offshore account. Click on the above links for more details on these scams. These email messages on them were more convincing than some of the ones we have seen in the past as they are personally addressed to the lawyers they were sent to (not BCC messages sent to large numbers of people).

Over the last four days we also received several reports of attempted frauds using names and scams we have seen many times before including:

• Zaira Hoshiko re collecting a spousal support payment from her ex-husband Allen Hoshiko further to a Collaborative Law Agreement.
• Brianna Shunshi re collecting a spousal support payment from her ex-husband Bill Shunshi further to a Collaborative Law Agreement.

If you have been targeted by these or similar frauds, please forward any of the emails and supporting documents that you have received to fraudinfo@lawpro.ca.

It's that time of year when we hear about new electronic products on the horizon and things we could/should be doing with them: the tech show season.

Tomorrow the big Consumer Electronics Show starts in Las Vegas and runs until January 13. I'm always surprised at how many people in my online social network travel to this show each year. I shouldn't be, I suppose, since it is the premier event for consumer electronics. To follow the action from afar (as I will) the hashtag on Twitter is #CES. You can also do as many others do, and follow Robert Scoble through the action. This year much of his coverage is on Google Plus. If you want to read even more, Scoble encourages us to check out his four Twitter lists for additional sources:

1. https://twitter.com/#!/Scobleizer/tech-news-brands This is the most complete list of tech news sources. 495 brands from Techcrunch to the BBC.

2. https://twitter.com/#!/Scobleizer/tech-news-people The journalists who make tech and media news. Mostly pros, but a few bloggers too who do great work. 500 of them.

3. https://twitter.com/#!/Scobleizer/tech-pundits Tech Media Pundits: the folks who make tech news interesting. 499 of them.

4. https://twitter.com/#!/Scobleizer/most-influential-in-tech These are the most influential people in the tech industry. 276 of them. Always worth watching (my favorite feed for Flipboard).

Source: Four Twitter lists you will want to follow at CES (Robert Scoble, Google Plus, January 7, 2012)

The legal world is already buzzing about the American Bar Association's ABA TECHSHOW 2012, March 29-31 in Chicago. The schedule has now been posted and registration is open. Early bird registration is available until February 17. The discussion is already active on Twitter using the hashtag #ABATECHSHOW.

In Montreal the LegalIT conference is slated as a one-day event on April 2, 2012. The organizers–members of the Young Bar Association of Montreal–are in the process of putting the program together. This event is always a highlight and worth checking out.

We are also waiting to hear details about LawTechCamp (held for the first time last May in Toronto) and the Pacific Law Technology Conference, usually held in Vancouver each October.

Have I missed any? What is your favourite tech event?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) offers a terrific suggestion for a New Year's resolution that you might actually have a decent chance of keeping: enabling full disk encryption on all of your computers.

Full disk encryption means that if your computer's hard drive falls into the wrong hands – because of theft, loss, or other causes – it remains unreadable until the correct "passphrase" is entered. If, for example, you lose your laptop full of sensitive client data while traveling, you can rest easy knowing that the data on your laptop is protected from prying eyes thanks to the digital vault full disk encryption provides.

Aside from loss and theft, full disk encryption offers the benefit of protecting your data from prying eyes at the U.S. border.

If you're not already using full disk encryption, you should be. The EFF offers suggestions for tools that can be used for full disk encryption in the full article on bringing in 2012 with full disk encryption.

Trello, from Joel Spolsky's Fog Creek Software, is a really nice tool for organizing a project, collaboratively, and for free.

Launched back in September, I just found out about the software today reading and interesting note he wrote showing the difference between vertical and horizontal software products.

This looks like it might be a big help in law offices, and anywhere teams need to collaborate on multifaceted projects.

Last May I attended a talk by Ron Deibert, Director of Citizen Lab, part of the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, at the annual Mesh Conference in Toronto. He talked about cyber crime having become one of the world's largest growth sectors, with savvy young coders from poorer nations leading the way. Cyber crime, he explained, takes advantage of:

• mobile networking and reliance on the web for our computing
• lack of controls (i.e. regulation and legislation) internationally
• proper security practices and policies not yet in place

Deibert has written a report for GISWatch (Global Information Society Watch) entitled Toward a Cyber Security Strategy for Global Civil Society? (December 2011) in which he explains the forces affecting cyberspace:

• "The internet’s de facto and distributed regime of governance – largely informal and driven up to now by decisions of like-minded engineers – has come under massive stress as a function of the internet’s continuing rapid growth."
• "…there has been a vast growth in the developing world, as millions of new digital natives come online. With these new digital natives come new values and interests that in turn are affecting internet governance, as governments like China, Russia and India exercise their influence."
• Television, telephony and radio have been integrated into what we know as cyberspace to make one big communications system. "This paradigm shift has upset the principles, norms and rules of what used to be just the “internet”, with implications for freedom of speech and access to information."
• Transnational corporations are acting as gatekeepers. "Market considerations can easily outweigh privacy and other rights concerns, and have already made largely irrelevant so-called 'end-to-end' principles that once ensured network neutrality."
• "…the private sector is being pressured, compelled, and even incentivised to 'police the internet' by governments looking to download their growing cyberspace controls." He points to the proposed "Omnibus Crime Bill" (Bill C-10, Safe Streets and Communities Act) in Canada as an example of a government requiring ISPs and telecommunications companies to "retain user data, process the data in ways that make it amenable to law enforcement and intelligence, and then share that data with law enforcement representatives – all without judicial oversight."

He states that "the securitisation of cyberspace – a transformation of the domain into a matter of national security – is perhaps the most important factor shaping the global communications ecosystem today." Cyberspace is now affecting national security, and has brought with it a whole new set of products, services and policy around cyber securitisation.

He says it is also affecting Internet censorship, and this will become an increasing threat to civic networks that are interested in open data. The threats are real, he insists, so if civic networks want to see their interests maintained on the Internet, they must get involved in helping to find "grassroots" solutions to the Internet's security problems before governments dominate with their interests only:

Civic networks need to be at the forefront of security solutions that preserve cyberspace as an open commons of information, protect privacy by design, and shore up access to information and freedom of speech, while at the same time address the growing vulnerabilities that have produced a massive explosion in cyber crime and security breaches.

He states that civic networks–like large corporations–are transnational in scope, and are therefore well placed to bring public pressure to bear on the private sector. He also explains:

Part of the civic strategy must also include a serious engagement with law enforcement – another traditional anathema for civil society. Law enforcement agencies are often stigmatised as the Orwellian bogeymen of internet freedom (and in places like Belarus, Uzbekistan and Burma, they are), but the reality in the liberal democratic world is more complex. Many law enforcement agencies are overwhelmed with cyber crime, are understaffed, lack proper equipment and training, and have no incentives or structures to cooperate across borders. Instead of dealing with these shortcomings head on, politicians are opting for new “Patriot Act” powers that dilute civil liberties, place burdens on the private sector, and conjure up fears of a surveillance society. What law enforcement needs is not new powers, it needs new resources, capabilities, proper training and equipment. But alongside those new resources should be the highest standards of judicial oversight and public accountability. Civic networks can articulate the differences between powers and resources, and highlight the importance of public accountability to liberal democracy as an example to the rest of the world without alienating what could be an important natural ally.

I encourage you to read the full paper as this only gives a taste of Deibert's full intention.

While this paper is a call to action to "civil networks" to step up to the plate, I wonder who these networks are specifically. Who will take up the call, who will lead the way? Other than the OpenNet initiative and the Electronic Frontier Foundation mentioned in the article, I don't get a sense of exactly who is meant to carry this through. No doubt all of us as citizens, but I expect it will take a lot of coordination.

Photo credit: Binary Code 2 by Flaivoloka, from stock.xchng.

When Heather Peters was dissatisfied with the proposed class-action settlement for her 2006 Honda Civic hybrid, which didn't provide the promised fuel economy, she opted for Small Claims Court instead.

She is taking Honda Motor Co. to court this Tuesday in in Torrance, CA for $10,000, the new limit in California starting January 1, 2012, which by far exceeds the $100 and rebates she would have received from the class action. Best of all, the rules of the jurisdiction require Honda to provide an employee representative who is not a lawyer,

Small Claims Court is a special court where you can resolve disputes cheaply and quickly. Small claims rules and procedures are more simple than in other courts. The hearing is informal. There is no jury. Parties represent themselves without lawyers.
[emphasis added]

Choosing the small claims venue helps Peters fight on what she considers a more even footing, without any lawyers involved. But the real reason she is making this move is that she is hoping to inspire other 500,000 people in the proposed settlement. The Los Angeles Times states,

If she's successful in getting others to follow her example, Peters could inspire a whole new litigation strategy in the auto industry and other businesses. Working together but filing lawsuits independently, consumers could force companies to go mano a mano with individual plaintiffs in far-flung courtrooms nationwide.

Call it a small-claims flash mob.

They indicate that this strategy has only become possible because of information sharing ability through the Internet and social media which allow for plaintiffs to compare tactics and assist in pleadings, and that mass fillings could become a trend. Peters' website is DontSettleWithHonda.org, and her Twitter handle is DontSettleWithHonda.

A favourable outcome at trial may also convince Honda to increase its settlement amount in the class action to dissuade members from going the same route before February 11, 2012, when claimants have to make their decision.

The one small catch is that Peters is not totally inexperienced with legal proceedings. She is herself a former lawyer who let her license expire, so representing herself may not be as intimidating as it would be for others. But it could also be practicing lawyers acting in an administrative role and motivated by social justice who could coordinate similar small-claims flash mobs in the future and transform litigation strategy entirely.

A copy of Peters' claim is available here.

If you’re a first-time smartphone shopper or a current smartphone shopper approaching an upgrade, you may be curious about the mobile platforms that are available. Everyone knows about the iPhone and iPad, and everyone knows about “Droids” (Android is the platform, Droid is one specific brand on Verizon). Often overlooked is the newcomer, Windows Phone. (Interesting that BlackBerry didn’t make the list, but that is a topic for another day…)

So how do these three mobile operating systems stack up?

This article from Geek.com, Android vs. iOS vs. Windows Phone 7: A mobile showdown, looks at these three platforms in various categories so you can better understand the differences between them. If you are in the market for a new smartphone, this article is a must read.

I read Steve Matthew's Slaw.ca column today Web Law Predictions for 2012 with great interest. I noted especially the prediction that "Firms Abandon Content, Blame Subsequent Failures on Social Media," with the implication that firms can't just by-pass creating great blog content and expect to get traction and otherwise build their reputations online.

One great start to blogging is to think about commentary that would have previously gone out via newsletter or email to clients, and make that available on the internet via a blog. However, writing for the printed text and writing for the web are two different things.

Write for your audience

First, you must consider your audience. Who are you writing for–lawyers? Or clients? Lawyers tend to like text-heavy documents, but most other audiences do not. If you are writing for clients, do not assume they will have time or the inclination to read long tracts.

Have a look at what else your audience reads and figure out what appeals to them. Perhaps video is the way to go instead with the audience you are trying to appeal to? It is very possible that clients in different industries consume content in different ways and prefer their content in different formats.

Make blog posts more readable

It can be more difficult to parse text online, and so we use a number of techniques to break up text for a blog:

• Consider breaking up a longer written article into a few smaller blog posts. You will get more mileage out of the content, and it will be easier for your audience to dip into.
• Use smaller paragraphs. I am always surprised at how a standard paragraph looks so long in a blog post. You will likely need to break these down more than you otherwise would think necessary. For example, the first two paragraphs in this blog post were originally one, but when I previewed them as a blog post, looked far too dense and so I broke them up.
• Use headings and bulleted or numbered lists inside longer blog posts to help the reader easily scan the content.
• Consider putting key words or phrases into bold to make them stand out, as I have done with this bulleted list.
• Use images to make blog posts more visually interesting. There is an interesting post today from Problogger: How to Use Images in Your Blog Posts. It is a nice introduction to using images.
• Use other media such as audio and video to lend some variety to your content. Selecting a video from another source, dropping it into your blog post with the "embed code," and then adding your own commentary to it is a nice way to change things up. If you get daring, you can try creating your own audio or video content. However, for a professional setting I suggest getting professional assistance to learn this part since it can be difficult to do well and is therefore time-consuming to get started on your own.

Vary the content

You need to keep the audience interested and engaged. Writing just commentary about recent case law is probably not going to keep them coming back for more. (I am assuming you want them to come back!) Don't forget to add a personal touch, lending a human voice with some personality. As audiences, we relate far better to other people than we do to faceless organizations.

Here are some additional ideas for content, and no doubt you can think of many more:

• discussion of newly introduced legislation
• other developments in the industry, such as new requirements from government
• what you learned at a conference or seminar
• a summary of recent surveys or report findings
• upcoming events
• a good, related article you read and your additional comments
• a review of a related book
• an interview with someone in the industry

What other types of blog posts do you like to read or write?
Image: courtesy of brainloc via stock.xchng

The 2011 Apple in Law Offices Survey saw over 750 respondents provide insight on how Apple devices, ranging from the iPhone to the MacBook, are impacting the way they practice law.

iPad

Unsurprisingly, the iPad saw a huge jump in usage. In the 2010 survey, 26% of respondents used an iPad in their law office; in the 2011 survey, that figure jumped to 56%. The remaining 44% of lawyers without an iPad apparently don't plan on going without one for long: 71% of respondents were considering purchasing iPads for their law office in the next year:

Mobile

On the mobile front, iPhone and Android continued to surge in usage at the expense of BlackBerry and Palm:

The Cloud

Cloud-based applications work across iPhone, iPads, Macs and PCs alike, and the 2011 Apple in Law Offices Survey shows cloud-based applications are rapidly becoming an integral part of Apple-using law firms.

The top 5 cloud-based applications were:

• Dropbox (used by 26% of respondents)
• Clio (used by 22% of respondents)
• Google Apps (used by 16% of respondents)
• iCloud (used by 15% of respondents)
• Box.net (used by 5% of respondents)

Popular Desktop-based Applications

The top 5 desktop applications used by respondents were:

Why Lawyers Choose Apple

Why are lawyers continuing to “go Apple”? 46.5% of respondents said they chose Apple hardware over PC options because the technology was more reliable and secure. Usability was next on at 33.8%. Familiarity due to home use of Apple/Mac products was 9.8%, and surprisingly aesthetics and design came in fourth at only 3%.

The Apple in Law Offices Survey is co-sponsored by Clio and MILOfest.

'Tis the season for law firms (and no doubt others) to send out season's greetings by email, most often accompanied by the usual wordy and sometimes bilingual notices that the content of the email may be confidential, privileged and subject to diverse prohibitions that we are more or less politely admonished to comply with.

Here's a typical, though polite, version (French omitted):

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The contents of this electronic mail message are confidential and strictly reserved for the sole use of its intended recipients. This message may contain information protected by the solicitor-client privilege. If you receive this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original message as well as all copies. Any disclosure, copying, distribution or reliance on the contents of the information is strictly prohibited. Thank you.

This year I have seen one that despite its economy of expression has an element that's new to me: a copyright claim. It's in an email whose subject line is "Happy Holidays from Your Friends at [Big Law firm]" and besides the medium-tech 'e-card' to which it links, its only content is this (I omit the French):

"This e-mail message is privileged, confidential and subject to copyright. Any unauthorized use or disclosure is prohibited."

The usual question arises whether it is helpful to claim privilege in something that is clearly not privileged, or whether that undermines one's assertion of privilege when the content really is privileged.

The new question, for me, is why one asserts copyright. Copyright arises automatically in our law, though possibly protecting it internationally would be helped by an assertion – but doesn't the Berne Convention require the use of © to do that, and a date?

Is the idea to prevent recipients from borrowing/pirating/emulating the firm's finely honed expression of its legal work (assuming charitably that it did not insert the copyright claim solely into its holiday greetings)? Given the amount of borrowing from long-standing and widely-distributed precedents in legal drafting, does that really hold water anyway? I suppose emails are not usually drafted using the forms books…

Is it an attempt to prevent people from posting online cease-and-desist notices that law firms send out to people who their clients think have defamed them? It is becoming common for such letters to show up on the recipients' web sites, partly to expose what the recipients perceive as bullying, and partly to laugh at the pomposity of some of the writers. (Drafters of such letters, take note.)

Is there a new problem that this new notice is aimed at resolving, or is it just another cautionary note from a profession that is good at detecting risk and trying to avert it? Or is it a bit of overkill?

CanLII has presented us with an early Christmas present. They are offering up their new hyperlinking tool. As the linking page (found under Tools) states:

This tool automatically adds hyperlinks in your document to legislative and case law citations corresponding to materials posted on the CanLII website. This functionality is powered by Lexum's LexHub, the same technology that is used to add hyperlinks within CanLII's decisions.

I know, this is just a new version of their Reflex API that Simon wrote about in 2008. I covered the previous source of the API, the CanLex site in 2009. CanLex was a beta site and the service has been unavailable since February – presumably while the good folks at LexUM were developing and testing LexHub.

I tested the new tool on some in house research memos and it works very well. Thanks CanLII.

I had an opportunity to download the new Irwin Law iPad app recently along with a copy of Ted Tjaden's Legal Research and Writing text. We have a copy of this excellent title in our firm library in print or course, but for testing purposes, I thought it would be a good choice for an eBook.

First I want to congratulate Jeff Miller and his team at Irwin Law. They made an excellent choice of partners in Nubook. The Irwin Law app was easy to find in the Apple App Store, the download process was simple. It was also very easy to register, and visit the Irwin Law eBook Store to acquire my purchase.

The app came with three pieces of documentation: a Quick Reference Guide, a lengthy User Guide, and a short user guide specific to Irwin Law. The Quick Reference Guide shows most of the features available in Nubook partner apps. The longer user guide shows the possibilities available, including embedding video clips in an eBook.

The content and readability of this Irwin Law text transfers very well to the eBook format. The electronic advantages of having a linked table of contents available on the page at will, the ability to highlight, underline, and annotate, not to mention searching the content, are excellent use cases for having a personal copy of your favourite title on your own device.

My favourite feature of this text is the ability to link out from the footnotes and the way that the app ensures you want to open a webpage.

My only problem now is budgeting so that anyone in my organization can have any item they need in any format that strikes their fancy. A better problem to have than content in only one format.

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." (Groucho Marx) "Unless you have a backlit eReader." (Shaunna Mireau)

Thanks to the great initiative of Louis Mirando, Osgoode Hall Law School's Chief Librarian, anyone can now access any or all of the Ontario Law Reform Commission's final reports on-line. (That link takes you to the report on the proposed adoption of the Uniform Wills Act, 1968.) You can also find some consultation papers, collections of papers and other related documents. They are on the Internet Library Archive, but will likely be "housed" on Osgoode's site, with a link from the Law Commission of Ontario.

At the LCO, we often receive requests for OLRC reports which are highly regarded. We've never been able to oblige, but now this work will be easily accessible to law reform researchers, academics, government policy makers and others across the world. They are searchable, available in a variety of formats and platforms and accessed (mostly) in English and French. Already people have been accessing them. Louis Mirando pointed out that the number of people accessing the reports even within the first few days they were available far surpassed the number who had accessed hard copies the Osgoode library.

I picked a document at random. It turned out to be a collection of papers from 1991, Appointing Judges: Philosophy, Politics and Practice (a bit of an oddity for an OLRC publication). (It noted 14 downloads, one of which was mine). It will surprise no one that most of the issues addressed in this collection are still germane twenty years later, as we continue to struggle with the judicial appointment process. Given the current composition of the Supreme Court of Canada, one issue that seems to have progressed somewhat, at least, is "gender representation" – it seems not, as Linda Robertson's December 6th post, Women on the Bench, discusses.

The LCO is pleased to have been associated with this project. We initially had in mind to make room for the complete set of OLRC reports that former Chair, John McCamus, brought over to our offices, grateful to move them out of his basement finally. Thanks to Louis Mirando and Tim Knight, the OHLS Library "point man" for this project, John's commitment and his effort has had far more useful consequencesl. Thanks, too, to the Ministry of the Attorney General which provided copyright permission and to Janice Williams, the LCO's Executive Assistant, who acted as our liaison with Louis and Tim.

The digitization of the OLRC has made a vital contribution to the historical development of the law in Ontario, but more importantly, has opened up for contemporary researchers all the wonderful work done for the some 100 final reports released by the OLRC before its demise in 1996.

The Bessemer Cloudscape

For all the talk about cloud computing and the security and ethics implications thereof, for many the concept remains a nebulous one. Earlier this month Bessemer Venture Partners, a leading venture capital firm, helped make the concept of cloud computing much more concrete by creating and publishing the Bessemer Cloudscape, a "visual to track the leading companies in this revolution."

Bessemer has invested heavily in cloud computing, and is in an excellent position to map the cloudscape. The firm sees cloud computing not only as one of the most important technology transitions to have ever occurred, but also as potential catalyst for a broader economic recovery:

Even as global markets struggle beneath the weight of unemployment, government paralysis, debt crises and Occupy Wall Street, one segment of the economy enjoys explosive growth with the promise of leading the recovery, one job at a time: cloud computing.

Cloud computing is no longer at the leading edge of the software world, but rather from the perspective of a growth investor, entrepreneur, or technology buyer, cloud computing IS the modern software industry. This multi-billion dollar, high-growth segment of technology now encompasses hundreds of exciting companies, covering every major segment of the software ecosystem.

The Bessemer Cloudscape is divided into three "layers":

Software-as-a-Service. This includes companies in virtually every segment of the market, which Bessemer divides into CRM, Marketing Demand Generation, Human Resources, Finance & Accounting, Content Management, Vertical (e.g. legal, healthcare), Enterprise Social Media, Marketing Analytics, Retail & E-Commerce, Collaboration, Business Intelligence and Ad Tech. The Software-as-a-Service layer of the Bessemer Cloudscape is targeted primary at corporate and consumer end-users. You'll recognize many names in this layer of the cloudscape, including Salesforce, LinkedIn, Box, Dropbox, Clio (my own company), Twitter, Google, and Facebook.

Platform-as-a-Service. This segment includes companies such as Heroku and New Relic. This segment of the cloud computing market is targeted primary at developers, which in many cases are using these Platform-as-a-Service companies to help deliver their own Software-as-a-Service products.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service. This is the segment of the cloud computing market that provides the foundation atop which Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service companies build their offerings. Companies at this level of the cloud operate huge datacenters with hundreds of thousands of servers.

We read from time to time that Internet defamation is worse than that in other media because of its global reach and persistence over time. Thus the Ontario Court of Appeal in Barrick v Lopehandia 2004 CanLII 12938 issued an injunction against further defamation, in part because of the Internet’s character as “potentially a medium of virtually limitless international defamation” (the Court quoted Matthew Collins, The Law of Defamation and the Internet.) The court (by majority) also increased fivefold the damages awarded at trial, for similar reasons.

Recently the British Columbia Supreme Court granted ex parte injunctions against publication of defamatory material. Nazerali v Mitchell 2011 BCSC 1581 (CanLII) (and against any transfer of domains or material that might facilitate the spread of the libel). See a comment on the case here.

On the other hand, the Ontario Superior Court recently held in Baglow v Smith 2011 ONSC 5131 (CanLII) that comments on a blog should not necessarily give rise to a claim in defamation, when the person alleging defamation has a right of reply in the same blog. The readers are expecting a reply, not a lawsuit, said the Court. It was not appropriate for a participant in a comment thread to go off to court, dropping out of the debate. One can ‘remove the sting’ by responding. The judgment quotes Justice Binnie in the SCC’s WIC Radio decision on fair comment, that public controversy can be a rough trade, and the law needs to accommodate its requirements.

Are the rules about what one can or should say online different from those that apply in print? Should one be compelled to defend oneself online? Are insults less defamatory there (here)?

Just when we were getting used to Twitter's new interface, along comes an even newer one. Twitter is introducing a new interface that has a consistent layout across the mobile and Internet applications. The new version is gradually being rolled out; I have seen it on the iPhone but not yet on the Internet. The iPad version is still being developed.

More information is given at fly.twitter.com.

According to Kevin O'Keefe on his Real Lawyers Have Blogs blog, this redesigned Twitter will be better for lawyers. He maintains the layout is easier to use, and it is more professional in appearance:

Twitter is likely to win over more lawyers and law firms who have found Twitter difficult to use and a bit unprofessional in their minds. Twitter is already mainstream among influencers (bloggers, reporters, association leaders) of a law firm's clients and prospective clients as well as clients themselves. These changes will get lawyers sitting in the fence as to Twitter engaged in using it.

For authors on SLAW, you know that in today's world, obtaining a publishing agreement with a traditional publisher means that you have to show your publisher how YOU will market and promote your own book. Those authors with a broad reach will of course be more attractive to a publisher. By the time you contact a publisher, you likely have some blog postings and perhaps print articles on your CV, but how about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other online marketing tools? What to do and where to do them? And a biggie – how much time to spend marketing rather than writing and perhaps making a living! I recommend all authors (and others interested in online marketing and publicity) take a look at the Wiley Author's Guide to Online Marketing & Publicity.

The Attorney General for England and Wales, Dominic Grieve gave a very interesting speech on December 1 entitled 'Contempt – A Balancing Act: balancing the freedom of the press with the fair administration of justice' to journalism students where he commented on his approach to contempt of court.

'Citizen journalists' should not think they are immune to the law of contempt, that there is a certain belief that so long as something is published in cyberspace there is no need to respect the laws of contempt or libel. While he accepts the danger posed to the administration of Justice by many bloggers is minimal, he say that we should not underestimate the potential for a blog or tweet to go viral.

We have seen in recent years not only the rise of social media but also the blog and the citizen journalist. Unlike major news organisations, which on the whole act in a responsible and measured manner, the inhabitants of the internet often feel themselves to be unconstrained by the laws of the land. There is a certain belief that so long as something is published in cyberspace there is no need to respect the laws of contempt or libel. This is mistaken.

Whilst I accept the danger posed to the administration of Justice by many bloggers is minimal, we should not underestimate the potential for a blog or tweet to go viral. As incautious city bankers and brides to be have discovered to their cost, comments on the web can soon be published far beyond their original, limited audience. And I use the word published advisedly, as publication is of course the phrase used within the Contempt of Court Act – an online article which breaches the strict liability rule runs the risk of running afoul of the law of contempt.

……………………..

The last case which I would like to mention involves something with which I suspect many of you are very familiar – Facebook.

A defendant in a trial had been acquitted of the charges she faced but the jury continued to consider their verdicts regarding her co-defendants. The night of her acquittal, one of the jury decided to go online and chat on Facebook.

Unfortunately she chose to track down the acquitted defendant on Facebook and proceeded to let her know her thoughts on the trial and the ongoing debate in the jury room. Knowledge of jury discussions is forbidden to all outside the jury. It is an offence under the Contempt of Court Act 1981 to 'obtain, disclose or solicit any particulars of statements made, opinions expressed, arguments advanced or votes cast by members of a jury in the course of their deliberations in any legal proceedings'

In this case the juror and the former defendant engaged in a Facebook chat about what was happening in the jury room. Their conduct came to the attention of the Judge and eventually to me. Again, in my Public Guardian role, proceedings for this type of contempt of court cannot be instituted save by or with my consent or on the motion of a court having jurisdiction to deal with it. I concluded a contempt had been committed.

The juror admitted her contempt and was committed to prison for 8 months. The former defendant denied wrongdoing but, after a brief trial, was found also to be in contempt – she too was committed for 2 months, although in her case the order was suspended for 2 years as she had been on remand for some months before the trial of the original matter.

The case highlighted important principles and again that the internet does not provide some form of immunity from prosecution. Jurors must feel able to openly express their views and opinions to their fellow jurors without fear that they will be subjected to public exposure and possible ridicule or disgust. This prevents juries from being inhibited as they discuss the merits of the evidence which they have heard. It is essential that the sanctity of the jury room is preserved.

The revolution in methods of communication cannot change what the Lord Chief Justice has termed 'essential principles' and that is why contempt proceedings will be brought by me when required.

Here is the Evening Standard's take, the Guardian, and the Daily Telegraph.

This isn't just about speech making. Last week, he applied to the High Court for permission to bring contempt proceedings against Theodora Dallas, a juror in a trial at Luton Crown Court. Ms Dallas was told by the trial judge not to conduct research on the internet. The case she was trying, which involved three defendants charged with causing grievous bodily harm, was discharged and a retrial ordered. Apparently, she deliberately looked up information about one of the defendants, a court was told last week.

As the Telegraph reports, Louis Mably, counsel for the Attorney-General, said: “Next day, when the jury retired, she informed other members of the jury. Her conduct was reported to the court and the judge discharged Ms Dallas and the remaining jurors.”

The Telegraph also reports on an interview which is behind the Times' firewall:

In an interview with The Times Mr Grieve admitted the internet did present challenges but it was only a “lawless territory” to the extent that it made enforcing contempt laws more difficult if “people post things on the net abroad”.

He also dismissed “tittle-tattle on Twitter” as necessarily posing a problem to enforcing the contempt laws.

“Ultimately, no one thought that the contempt of court rules, even before 1981, would prevent dinner party tittle-tattle and nor should we necessarily get too exercised about that,” he said.

He added, however, that if comments went “viral” and were “reached by thousands or millions of people accessing a particular site or blog then of course we are going to be exercised about it”.

Mr Grieve said: “Judges have been given directions to jurors for a long time not to discuss cases with those who are outside the jury room. We know that long before the internet some failed in their duty occasionally and were punished for it.”

I am unaware of any of the Canadian Law Officers of the Crown having spent this much time thinking about these issues.

Love them or hate them, Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPad and MacBook are rapidly changing the way lawyers practice law. In just a few short years the technology lawyers use has shifted homogeny of PCs and BlackBerries to a diverse mix of PCs, Macs, iPads and iPhones. RIM, meanwhile, is imploding.

To try to keep a pulse on the rapidly shifting IT landscape, Clio, in cooperation with MILOfest, is holding the second annual Apple in Law Offices Survey - please take the survey. There's a chance to win an iPad 2 to boot!

As I did last year, I will publish the results of the survey here. This is the last week to participate in the Apple in Law Offices Survey.

Now being reported widely (5, 6, 7), Wikileaks and partners have documented an international market in computer, cellphone, and GPS surveillance software that can and has be used by governments for the use of tracking down dissidents. Muammar Qaddafi is the poster child, at the moment, but the practice is widespread, as indicated on this interactive map.

I have a friend who jokingly teased me for imagining that governments could possibly care what I say or who I call. When it is this easy, though, it would seem almost perverse for them to deny themselves the opportunity, unless, of course, there were laws around it. Unsurprisingly, what lawful access requirements do currently exist are being undermined (Says Ontario's Privacy Commissioner) in favour of unrestricted (2011 ABCA 94 (CanLII)) snooping ( see last year's bills C-50, 51 and 52 which have been re-appearing since 2005).

The Clawbies website design is now updated, and the season opening post is up. Yes, it's time for the (6th!) Canadian Law Blog Awards!

Whether you're a blogger or blog reader, the month of December has become the time to shine a light on your favourite Canadian law blogs and bloggers. And if you're new to the Clawbies tradition, please make careful note of 'the humble Canadian rule' — don't toot your own horn! Your blog gets automatically nominated when you nominate and link to other bloggers! Yes, it's a wink-wink, nudge-nudge concept, but take a look around at the nomination posts from prior years for examples. Or search for 'Clawbies 2010' or 'Clawbies 2009'; you'll get a clearer picture — our goal is to have fun with it!

Once again, I am honoured to have colleague Jordan Furlong on the Clawbies judging panel. I am also extremely pleased to announce that Slaw's Simon Fodden has also agreed to lend a helping hand in deciding the (virtual) hardware.

So please consider taking part: explore lawblogs.ca; see the Clawbies winners from prior years; and read the great legal content from bloggers who work and write about the law in Canada. Write a blog post with your nominations (or tweet with the #clawbies2011 hashtag) by December 28th, and we'll announce the winners on New Year's Eve!

To call a smart-phone a phone is really a misnomer. We need to think of them as computers with internet connections that we carry around in our pockets. 

Why is this an important distinction? From a legal perspective, that changes the perspective tremendously. Consider Connie Crosby's Slaw post "Digital Wallets on Their Way" , and the comment on the post musing about privacy and the warrant-less search of cellphones that is being debated in various jurisdictions.

The privacy aspects of a phone that just makes phone calls without retaining any information, and the consideration of whether law enforcement needs a warrant to look at it – are much different than for the devices we have now. Legislators and courts need to consider that looking at a person's phone may be the equivalent of walking into their house and looking at their bank statements, credit card bills, reading material, photo albums, and mail, and while they are there, nosing around on their computer to see all the files, email and whatever else is there including the sites they visit.

Considerering just the phone aspect for the moment, they track and save data on not only what calls you made, to who, and for how long – but also where you were when you made the call.

Other information that might reside on our cell phones include personal and confidential information such as banking information, health information, where we have been and when, and records of communications on various platforms that are meant to be private. Also consider that for many it is not only personal use, but also business use that will contain personal and confidential information of others.

And while you can make phone calls on smartphones, consider the other devices that they replace, and other things that they do:

Digital wallet, GPS, map, tracking device, camera, video camera, email client, social media client, phone directory, calendar, note pad, to do list, grocery list, book reader, magazine reader, newspaper reader, web browser, clock, alarm clock, file storage, dictation device, music player, video player, video game player, radio, video-phone, TV, dictionary, encyclopedia, research assistant, comparison shopper, calculator, wi-fi hot spot, bar code scanner, ephemeris, music composer, video / music editor, cookbook, translator, metronome, flashlight, level, … and the list goes on.

I thought that Slaw readers might be interested in this observation by BLG partner, Norman Letalik, as a result of his recent exchange with Apple Canada's regional counsel. (The following quotation is from an email thread in a group to which I belong and is reproduced with Norm Letalik's permission.)

Note that I have now had a telephone conversation with Ms. Famulak, who is regional counsel for Apple Canada. She confirms that the information that is dictated on the Apple iPhone 4s using the Siri dictation feature is sent to servers that reside in the US and that Apple, its related companies and agents have access to the contents of what is dictated. She did not wish to opine on whether Apple's ability to access dictated client communications would breach legal privilege in Ontario or elsewhere. So, the best practice would be not to use the dictation feature on an iPhone 4s for any dictated information to which you intend legal privilege to attach. Note as well that Apple's dictation servers are located in the US, so the dictated information may also be scanned for national security purposes by the US Government pursuant to powers given to it under the Patriot Act.

In his request to Ms Famulak, Mr. Letalik noted that lawyers "likely did not read your 364 pp user agreement document carefully enough to understand the implications of the above terms and conditions."

The problem with privilege in this context is explained by Professor Adam Dodek, a new contributor on Slaw, in his February 2011 discussion paper for the Canadian Bar Association, "Solicitor-Client Privilege in Canada: Challenges for the 21st Century":

As the House of Lords has stated, the sine qua non of privilege is confidentiality: “Unless the communication or document for which privilege is sought is a confidential one, there can be no question of legal advice privilege arising. The confidential character of the communication or document is not by itself enough to enable privilege to be claimed but is an essential requirement.” The CBA has issued “Guidelines for Practicing Ethically with New Information Technologies,” which declares that “Lawyers should exercise the same care to protect the confidentiality and privilege of electronic communications as is normally expected of them using any traditional form of communication.”
PDF, at p.48 (footnotes omitted)

Certain knowledge that a communication is open to others to read may ipso facto prevent the attachment of privilege.

There were cheers (ok, it was me) at a recent technology budget planning meeting at our office when it was announced that we are increasing WiFi throughout our space in another of our offices. In that office, up to now we have provided wifi for the area that includes anywhere a client would be. Our estimate for this is $4500. The WiFi we provide in our offices is secured with a password and uses a different internet connection than our network. Risk = reasonable.

There is an interesting article in the American Bar Associations YourABA December 2011 issue called Public Wi-Fi and the cost of "free". The article addresses privacy risks for lawyers in using public WiFi:

It's said that "free" often comes with a cost, and in the case of free public Wi-Fi, the cost may be your privacy. Imagine you're connected to the free Wi-Fi at your local coffee shop or at your hotel while on vacation, and you log into your favorite social network or web-based email account. Using simple and widely available tools, other users on that network may be able to "sniff" out the username and password you used to log in. They can then use those credentials to hijack your accounts and access your sensitive files. For lawyers handling confidential documents or communications, that scenario raises both privacy and professional responsibility concerns.

Because I do not have any client information (including in my email) stored on my iPad or laptop, I occasionally choose to connect to public WiFi. Most often, the public WiFi provided I use is in a coffee shop, or from a government. The City of Edmonton offers a service called Wireless Edmonton that reaches some parts of the Alberta Law Libraries Edmonton site. That public WiFi has even been used for research demonstration purposes during the Head Start program. Risk = reasonable.

The Wireless Edmonton provices some notes of caution on their FAQ page:

8. Can I be vulnerable to Viruses while using Wireless Edmonton?
Yes, It is recommended that customers install anti-virus/spyware software on your laptop as well as ensuring definitions are current.

9. Are the services for Wireless Edmonton secure?
No, the wireless network is not secure. Information sent from or to your laptop could be viewed by someone else using a wireless device and the appropriate software.
The City assumes no responsibility for the safety of equipment or for laptop configurations or device configurations, security, or data files resulting from connection to the wireless network.
For security purposes, it is recommended that your computer does not have file sharing active (for Windows – click on network settings in the Control Panel, then find and uncheck file and print sharing). Active file sharing allows other users on the network to access your files.

Public WiFi risks are not relevant to our firm WiFi expansion, and it is a capital expense. Why would a firm expand WiFi in the office? One big cheerful reason comes to mind – supporting WiFi enabled mobile device use (or even laptops) to maximize productivity for staff wherever in the office they happen to be. So yes, Field Readers – librarian support is available in the coffee room.

Does your law office have WiFi?